The Field Guide to North American Hauntings: Everything You Need to Know About Encountering Over 100 Ghosts, Phantoms, and Spectral Entities - Softcover

Blackman, W. Haden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0609800213 ISBN 13: 9780609800218

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1998

Synopsis

From headless phantoms and screaming specters to invisible poltergeists and disembodied voices, ghosts occupy our homes, infest cemeteries and graveyards, lurk in nearby caves and forests, and even wander city streets. However, despite the wealth of sightings, aspiring ghost hunters have few resources.
        
Now, for the first time, here is a fully functioning field guide for those courageous investigators who wish to observe and interact with supernatural beings and the spirit world. Drawn from all available evidence, including recent research and sightings, modern urban legends, and Native American mythology and North American folklore, this book describes in detail over 100 haunted sites and their resident specters.
        
Brimming with useful advice and practical tips for the ghost hunter, The Field Guide to North American Hauntings provides vital information for those seeking to encounter ghosts. Whether exploring the lonely cells of Alcatraz or the desolate stretch of road known as Route 666, or searching for specters at the White House, ghost hunters will always be prepared with The Field Guide to North American Hauntings.

About this title

Review

W. Haden Blackman itemizes over 100 haunted sites and their resident specters, focusing on haunted houses, haunted vessels, haunted cemeteries, and haunted sites in nature--from the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego (where Kate Morgan, killed on Thanksgiving Day in 1892, now appears in a black lace dress and makes strange choking noises) to Franklin's Haunted Orchard (where a foreign-born peddler was killed and buried under an apple tree in 1759, and where apple trees have continued to this day to produce blood-stained blossoms and blood-streaked apple pulp).

Blackman intends his guide, however, to be more than just another ghoulish anthology. If you want to find and interact safely with ghosts, you need to know where to go, what to look for, and how benign the ghosts are. For each site, along with a full narrative and supernatural history, Blackman includes its address and whereabouts, the number of ghostly residents, their identities, and the type of ghostly activities that have been observed. He tells what their demeanors are (their personalities; propensities for mischief, violence, or both; and attitudes toward the living), and the likelihood of encountering the spirit or ghostly phenomenon while visiting. A chapter on ghost hunting provides worthwhile tips for anyone wishing to avoid, cope with, or encounter a spectral presence, and the appendices--with sample questionnaires for ghost witnesses, sample questionnaires for ghosts, a glossary, and listings by state and province--round out the practical nature of Blackman's guide. But even if you haven't the slightest interest in searching out ghost haunts, the book is worth it for the sensational stories alone. --Stephanie Gold

About the Author

W. Haden Blackman is a corporeal spirit haunting portions of San Francisco, where he manifests to serve a prominent computer game company. He rarely appears during the day, cannot be photographed, and is easily repelled by the sight of religious artifact

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0609800213
• ISBN 13: 9780609800218
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208